Human nature, red in tooth and claw

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About Tess

Liverpool lass Tess is now settled in the far north of England where she roams the fells with a brolly, dreaming up new stories and startling the occasional sheep. You can follow her ramblings at her website, www.tessmakovesky.com.

Dull but necessary

Scribbling again

I’ve been pretty quiet on here lately, and there’s a good reason for that – I’ve had my head down trying to finish various different projects by the end of the year.

And the good news is, I have. Well, sort of. One short story that I was trying to cut down for a competition ended up 400 words longer than the original, and 800 words over the competition maximum word count. Best laid plans and all that.

But I’ve also been working very hard on a complete rewrite of my canal-boat-getaway crime novella, which I’ve now renamed ‘Embers of Bridges’ to keep the Pink Floyd theme going. (For anyone who isn’t a fan, it’s a snippet from their track High Hopes, and seemed appropriate in all sorts of ways.)

The rewrite has been a tussle; the original version was far too ‘cosy’ and needed a good kick up the arse to bring it into the 21st century. I’ve gone some way to achieving that (though still not as far as I’d like), and on Friday I finally got to type the two most important words of all. The End. It’s a nice feeling!

Of course, it still needs a lot of scraping, polishing, pruning, chopping and general head-scratching. But at least now I have a framework to hang new ideas and new bits of writing onto, which should make things easier. I’m hoping to have the whole thing finished by early next year, ready to start the submission process. Publishers, you have been warned. There’s just time to don tin hats and get your heads below the parapet!

And now I’ve got more time to fiddle about on social media, chat on here, and get on with other stories, submissions and what-have-you. Phew!